WAR is the greatest social crime and the most hideous national disaster of modern civilized nations. One of its chief causes [is] the state of full military preparedness which is so widely maintained. Other causes may be found in the race or national prejudices which still obtain among the uneducated, in the system of private interest in the manufacture of armaments still existing in this country, in the [practice] of supplying belligerent nations with munitions of war common to neutral countries, and in the policies of colonial aggrandizement which have been traditional with European countries. And [through] whatever channels it finds support, the root cause may be the exigencies of rival commerce on the high seas, seeking this iniquitous and withal unprofitable road to monopoly.
But in modern civilized warfare the essential and invariable concomitant is a state of military preparedness and armament, the chief function of which is to incite recourse to itself, in times of misunderstanding. There can be no permanent security in peace until the nations reduce their competitive armaments to nominal police forces and the temptation to international slaughter is removed. We are today in a state of lawlessness and disorder internationally such as would not be tolerated for a moment within the nation. The analogy of private life in orderly communities is in every way fitting.
International security involves many issues besides small armaments. There must be communication and commerce between individuals of all nations as freely as today between the states; there must be foreign scholarships such as John Cecil Rhodes founded between all countries, as well as a more considerable exchange of professors; there must be colonization and unrestricted settlement of all peoples in all lands as well as free trade by sea; lastly, there must be an international judicial system with vastly more authority than the present Prize Court and an international arbitrative and legislative body with a police to enforce its degrees -- so that the world will be federated in time as most of the inhabitants of this continent are already.
No country can more fittingly and safely take the lead in bringing these things about than America. With no foes save such as she herself provoke, with no colonies save such as she desires to set free, with no neighbors heavily armed about her borders, with a coast which cannot be blockaded by any foreign fleet and an expanse of land which cannot be overrun by any foreign troops, she can safely embark upon a career of commercial and industrial prosperity without the huge armaments of European countries. The moral effect of such a policy on other nations will be tremendous, they will imitate her again as they have already imitated her political institutions and scientific developments -- and in the parliament of the nations that will take place in time, America will take a deservedly prominent part. She will be an acknowledged leader.
There is the greatest danger to this prospect if America now without cause increase her burden of arms. How can we broach a sane policy of law and order, when we have armed to the teeth, like the worst brigand in the whole cowardly band -- when we have committed ourselves as a nation to the hideous armament–race. We have everything to gain at this time and in all future time by levelheadedness and a wise national policy, but we have many things to lose by failing to rise to the situation. Other nations have drifted into armaments and we see where they have landed. Shall we drift after them or steer a better course?
To this question there can be but one answer among educated people. It is the masses that we have to fear in America -- the masses who are reached only by sensational war-scare regularly floated in the daily press, which in turn is often reached only by the moneyed interests that profit from the costly conditions of national preparedness. It is the masses who go to make up the backbone of American public opinion, to whom the truth in this matter must be brought home. And to this great work of educating -- first ourselves -- and then others -- we college men dedicate ourselves.
And along with the destruction of militarism and the war-spirit, must go pari passu the great work of construction. There must be a union of nations by arbitration treaties -- there must be a better system of international supreme courts and courts of appeal; there must be free trade and free migration; and the communication and exchange of ideas, ideals, and customs, must go on until the world is knit firmly into an interdependent federation and there exists a state of international law and order among all peoples. To these further aims, we also dedicate ourselves.
K. G. Karsten.
April 10th, 1915.
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